


Unguarded

by GrumpyBones



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Established Relationship, Illegal Wrist Touching, Kissing, M/M, Peer Pressuring People to Lie in the Grass With You, Royalty, Sneaking Out, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 11:04:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20152567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyBones/pseuds/GrumpyBones
Summary: Jim is prince who will likely never be King. Spock is pacifist in a time of war. They're friends and confidants and a lot of things other than subtle.





	Unguarded

**Author's Note:**

> Don't even try to figure out what year this taking place because if I don't know, you won't figure it out.
> 
> Started as a derailed prompt fill that was aided by a painfully realistic nap-dream.

Prince James is lying in the sun, soaking up the glorious rays of spring, letting them unwind the coldness that the stone walls of the castle in winter have seemed to burn into the hollow of his ribcage. Trips to the town had grown rarer as the unabating parade of battles with the northern realm raged on, the steadfast falling of snow not wearing on the relentless presence of war the same way it seemed to drain him. His mother had ordered him inside like a prisoner, footprints too easy to track in the snowdrifts, a boy too easy to find against the stark white, the trunks of dormant trees not ideal concealment. His father would rather him on the front lines with his brother, his training all but completed last summer and, nearly eighteen, being old enough to die in his eyes. Though, as the ground thawed, they all knew the King would not be told no for much longer.

And Jim. Jim thinks someone other than the second in line for the throne ought to be calculating the cost of winning versus the rewards that would come if they’d only be willing to bargain their way towards peace.

He lets his head loll to the right, the newly sprouted grass tickling his cheek as he takes in the figure he’s dragged along as a sham of a guard. Spock stands stoically, staring off into the distance, his eyes twitching as he attempts to track the sounds of broken twigs, giving a fine performance of acting like he’s qualified for the job.

“Enough, Spock. Come join me,” Jim beseeches him, eyes falling closed as he pats the vaguely damp earth beside him.

“Her Highness, the Queen, was barely willing to allow you beyond the gate; one would think a person in your position would be more careful not to lose privileges so recently earned.” Jim doesn’t have to be looking at him to know the biting look Spock wears on his face, which he feels like a physical jab.

“Furthermore,” the young science prodigy continues, “you have already lost her favor, should she realize your interpretation of, ‘a full guard accompaniment.’ I can only claim to be blameless as far as the edge of the woods when you so kindly thought it best to tell me of her unfulfilled contingencies. The least I can do, for both of our sakes, is to at least imitate her wishes.”

Jim can’t help the chuckle that falls from him. “Relax, Spock. You’ve tenfolded our defenses and halved our mortality rate. My father will keep you safe from her wrath. Though, if you’d just build him a machine that can hurl a spear with the accuracy of your weather tracking than he would —”

“I have told him,” Spock cuts in, his voice having lost its level pitch, “that I have no intention of aiding in bloodshed.”

He tacks on, “Your Grace,” quickly at the end, playing the role of innocent as if he may have simply forgotten. Jim knows that he’s not thought to be stupid enough to fall for it.

Allowing one eye to peek open, Jim’s smile struggles to find sincerity with the lopsidedness of his cheeks, caused by the unattractive wink he’s currently sporting.

“I think you’re preaching to the wrong crowd.”

The muscle of Spock’s jaw relaxes, his arms unfolding to hang by his sides in his normally neutral stance, though a line of tension remains in his limbs.

“I am aware, Sir,” he says, the simple phrase bursting with layers of meaning.

This is far from the first time the two have discussed these matters in a tone unfitting for a loyal subject and an obedient Prince. Words whispered in labs and chambers eventually evolved to the silent medium of fraught letters, exchanged from hand to hand at the brushing in hallways. Learning, the hard way, how a castle never sleeps.

It’s always amazed Jim, with a building so large and the royalty residing within it so small, how word still manages to travel so swiftly. How no sooner had he allowed his smallest finger to lay on Spock’s, curling around it possessively while the man spoke about the tracking of star patterns, one of his more passionate areas of expertise, had Jim’s mother started her search for his future wife. How Jim had not even rounded a corner from the laboratories, mouth kiss bitten for the first time and hair out of place, before Jim’s days had been filled to the brim with additional studies, Spock’s quarters moved into the help’s ward — as far away from the family’s as physically possible. 

The ability of maids and butlers to operate silently, working with the whisper of ghosts, was not always in the best interest of everyone. Jim wonders, sometimes, what other information has been passed along, which of his frustrations have echoed their way into his parents’ suite. If his father knows how deeply his younger son’s hatred for the King’s bloodsoaked reign is rooted. If his mother knows how Jim spends his nights, thinking of Spock’s broad chest and slim hips. If either know how fiercely he has tried to make his elder brother, Sam, see reason.

“Just lay with me, before I’m forced to admit you’re right and we have to head back.” It’s a pathetic plea, Jim’s desperation laid bare as his voice falls to begging in a way that should never accompany a crown.

A sigh leaves Spock as his shoulders sag, protesting still even as he relents. “You are second heir to the throne of one of the most powerful kingdoms we know to exist. It is illogical for you to be left unguarded this way.”

His skin radiates heat in a way that Jim’s own instantly recognizes, his head falling onto Spock’s shoulder as their sides align. Their chests rise and sink in a communal rhythm, leaving the Prince to wonder when exactly that came to be. Just now, with the proximity of touch? As they hurried from the castle’s gate, an arm’s width away and closer than they had been in nearly a month? Or had this happened longer ago, when Spock’s lips first touched upon his own, making a part of Jim ineffably his? It had, he remembers, stolen his breath — perhaps he had never gotten it back.

“If I were King,” Jim begins, his tone purposely playful, “and I ordered you to run away with me, would you?”

“I believe my loyalty to the throne has been more than sufficiently proven, Your Highness,” Spock answers, his fingertips finding the soft skin of Jim’s inner wrist, stroking the lines of his tendons with almost painful gentleness.

“If I were to now, as your Prince?” He asks, willing his voice not to waiver.

“I am but a subject, Sir. It is not my place to question a command from a member of the royal family.”

Jim raises his head from its warm perch, pulling away only to rise up on his elbow, his face replacing Spock’s view of the canopy. His skin still tingles where it was just caressed, his chest burning hot where it presses into Spock’s side. 

“And as your friend, Spock? What if I were to simply ask you to, as your friend?”

He’s already trembling when Spock’s hand raises, sliding through the hair that has fallen into Jim’s face, attempting to tuck it behind his ear. The strands defy him, too short, refusing to be captured, and Spock finds the solution in his fingers holding them in place, palm searing into the skin of Jim’s cheek.

“I would tell you that the Kingdom needs your guidance, more than you know, and I would not desire to take you from your people in these most trying times.”

Spock sits up, forcing Jim to move slightly backwards, though his touch remains. His brown eyes staring, free from shame, at Jim’s mouth when he continues, “However, wherever you find yourself, I would follow — you need not even ask at all, Jim.”

It’s as if something snaps, or perhaps is released, if the force of their mouths coming together is an indication. A hard press, followed by a sobbing whine, and cultivating in the meeting of enamored tongues. 

The birds are singing in the green leaf enveloped branches above them, the sounds of a new season bringing a fresh round of questions about what will grow from it. 

And Jim, smell of earth in his nose, sun on his back, and Spock’s pulse pounding beneath the press of his fingers, knows it is time to start planting the seeds of change.

**Author's Note:**

> Literally no idea if I'll revisit this again. Lord knows I don't have a plan.
> 
> Till next time you can find me at [GrumpyBonesey](https://grumpybonesey.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.


End file.
